=The Tower=, with its famous spire, needs no apologist to justify its claim to be considered the most beautiful, not merely in England, but in Europe. From the time Leland naively wrote, "the tower of stone and the high pyramis of stone on it is a noble and memorable 'peace' of work," every critic of the cathedral praises the tower unreservedly, although Defoe was anxious to improve it, for he said: "The beauty of it is hurt by a thing easily to be remedied, which is this. The glass in the several windows being very old, has contracted such a rust, that it is scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls; consequently, it appears as if there were no lights at all in the tower, but only recesses in the stone, whereas could the windows be glazed with squares and kept clean, which might be done, they would be plainly visible at a distance, and not only so, but from the adjacent hills you would see the light quite through the tower, which would have a very fine effect." It is curious to remember that perfectly as it accords with the rest of the pile, so that it seems the very central motive of the whole scheme, yet it is really an addition. Like the touch of genius which by one word changes a good poem to a flawless lyric, so the creator of this crown to an already beautiful building by his final touch seems to have imparted additional beauty to that which already existed. The first idea was doubtless to add a lantern after the style of Ely, or at most a wooden spire. That the lower part of the tower is part of the original design, and intended to be open to the church, is proved by the presence of a series of detached Purbeck marble columns in the style of the rest of the internal masonry, which, hidden by the groining, or half-concealed by later masonry, were obviously meant to be part of the decoration of the interior, but again, the original plan of the tower made no provision for the huge weight of a stone spire. Indeed, it is quite doubtful if in its first state it was able to support itself, for curiously designed abutments are built in the triforium and clerestory of the nave, choir, or transepts on each of its four sides. The stonework of these is Early English, which if slightly later than the first story of the tower, is yet considerably earlier than its two upper stories. Notwithstanding the faulty construction that needed additional work so soon after it was erected, about fifty years later a daring architect super-imposed two stories, and added the lofty spire, which still stands, despite an early settlement which deflected it 23 inches out of the perpendicular. But its stability can hardly be reckoned a tribute to the judgment of the architect, for many times since complex arrangements of iron bands and ties have been added to ward off such a disaster as that which lost Chichester its spire in 1861, and has caused many others to be rebuilt from the very foundations. By a report of Sir Christopher Wren made in the time of